Hereford Cathedral: One of the finest examples in England & The famous Mappa Mundi!

Last week I visited Hereford which is in the heart of England and went to take a look at their Cathedral. It is one of the few Cathedrals in the country which is free to visit and is a beautiful example, it also houses an ancient treasure, read on to find out......

It has been a place of worship for over 1300 years and is constantly being renovated with stonemasons working full time there. One of the highlights of the Cathedral is that it is home to the Mappa Mundi.

The Hereford Mappa Mundi is unique in Britain’s heritage; an outstanding treasure of the medieval world, it records how 13th-century scholars interpreted the world in spiritual as well as geographical terms.

The map bears the name of its author, ‘Richard of Haldingham or Lafford’ (Holdingham and Sleaford in Lincolnshire). Recent research suggests a date of about 1300 for the creation of the map.

Mappa Mundi is drawn on a single sheet of vellum (calf skin) measuring 64 × 52 inches (1.58 × 1.33 metres), tapering towards the top with a rounded apex. The geographical material of the map is contained within a circle 52 inches in diameter and reflects the thinking of the medieval Church with Jerusalem at the centre of the world.

Superimposed on to the continents are drawings of the history of humankind and the marvels of the natural world. These 500 or so drawings include of around 420 cities and towns, 15 Biblical events, 33 plants, animals, birds and strange creatures, 32 images of the peoples of the world and 8 pictures from classical mythology.

Christopher de Hamel, a leading authority on medieval manuscripts, has said of the Mappa Mundi, ‘… it is without parallel the most important and most celebrated medieval map in any form, the most remarkable illustrated English manuscript of any kind, and certainly the greatest extant thirteenth-century pictorial manuscript.’